


surge

by futuredescending



Series: circuitry [2]
Category: Bridget Jones's Diary - All Media Types
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 08:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13290990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuredescending/pseuds/futuredescending
Summary: In the end, they are outed by Bridget’s mother. Of course they are.





	surge

**Author's Note:**

> Of all the things I should be working on, this was...unexpected. Sequel to [closed circuit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8134979).

In the end, they are outed by Bridget’s mother. Of course they are.

Like all crises, it starts with something so small and incidental as to be dismissed almost completely.

Almost.

It happens like this:

A new hire for _The Gazette_ happens to catch Parish Councilor Jones on her way to her car from a pivotal meeting regarding the controversial move to reduce the height of Grafton Underwood’s hedges. As Bridget’s mother once ran a millennial-friendly, radically-progressive campaign of inclusiveness and diversity, she made a rather opportunistic target for a budding journalist’s desire to report a hot take on the upcoming legislation to legalise same-sex marriage across the United Kingdom.

“Ms Jones! Ms Jones!” the intrepid reporter shouts as she wields her small recorder like a cricket ball at Pamela’s face. “You embrace the LGBT community and make them a central pillar to your platform. What are your thoughts of the upcoming vote to legalise same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland?”

Pamela, her eyes as big as bright blue saucers for precisely 0.03 seconds, stretches a wide smile across her face and her demeanour entirely lights up with an _I am an accessible public official_ expression. ”Oh, I think it’s a brilliant idea! As you know, I fully support several homosexuals and other such minority figures. Transvestites, the queer, single parents, and other such people who like to say they are in an _alternative lifestyle_." Air quotes included. "Why, my daughter is currently in a relationship with two other men and my grandson doesn’t seem to have any ill effects. In fact, having _two_ fathers around a young boy may be beneficial!”

The quote becomes a front page article printed under the bolded title, **Parish Councilor’s Daughter Outed as a Polygamist?**

And while _The Gazette_ ’s readership only numbers in the hundreds and most news it reports on goes unnoticed and little regarded, with such a sensational headline, word begins to travel fast and furious. After all, it isn’t very difficult to connect Pamela Jones’s daughter, the nationally recognisable if not recognised Bridget Jones, to her notable husband, human rights lawyer Mark Darcy. And once world stage players are involved, the more interested the bigger news outlets become. Once it is pieced together that it is American Billionaire Love Guru Jack Qwant who is the third member of this strange little trifecta, there is no stopping the paparazzi hordes.

It’s a shame Bridget nor Mark, nor Jack have an inkling as to what has transpired over the course of the last week.

 

_____

 

They just so happen to read the title card of the morning news programme Mark likes to watch over breakfast.

**LOVE QWANTIFIED AS THREE**  
_Billionaire Jack Qwant in alleged relationship with human rights lawyer and wife_

Jack makes a face like the muesli he’s eating has gone off.

Mark chokes on his coffee.

“Oh _fuck_!” Bridget exclaims as the spoon full of banana and porridge sits hovering in the air half way to William’s open, expectant mouth. “Wait, why am I just the _wife_?”

“ _Last week, Grafton Underwood parish councilor, Pamela Jones, mother of former television reporter Bridget Jones, outed her daughter’s scandalous proclivities to a village paper: a relationship with two other men, one of whom she is legally married to….”_

They watch in open-mouthed horror as grainy images flash across the screen of Jack entering and exiting the Darcy residence. Of them all going for a walk in the park. Of Bridget and Jack caught in an amorous kiss while Mark looks adoringly at his son right next to them, seemingly unbothered by his wife locking lips with another man.

And then the phones begin ringing, and the camera flashes come through the open windows until Mark frantically draws all the blinds and curtains.

Jack shuts off the telly. The silence feels as heavy as lead. “...so that was unexpected.”

“I can’t believe Mum would do such a thing!” Bridget says. “There has to be a mistake! She was probably misquoted! Or, or... _coerced_.”

“Really, Bridget, is it so difficult to believe your mother wouldn’t sell out her own daughter to feed her constant need for attention?” Mark snappishly asks. His face is as white as the dress shirt he wears. There’s a haunted expression in his eyes that can only amount to a dazed, _I’ve seen things_.

Before Bridget can open her mouth to retaliate, Jack raises his hands. “Let’s not start throwing blame around. It isn’t going to help anything, and William is sensitive to negative energy.”

For his part, William only seems vaguely concerned that no more porridge seems to be forthcoming but valiantly rallies by picking at the little rice puffs littering his tray instead.

Mark barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes. “Oh for God’s sake. This wouldn’t even be happening if it weren’t for you.”

“Me?” Jack asks in a wounded tone.

“Your involvement makes this an utter media circus.” Mark pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s never really done much for him in staving off an impending headache, but it’s become a force of habit by now. “With little to no damage on you, I might add. You’re _untouchable_. If anything, this situation raises your profile considerably! Meanwhile, my character’s now been called into question. Every past case I’ve worked on will be scrutinised. I’m sure I’ll be asked to leave the partnership. I’ll be lucky to practise ever again.”

“That’s...a little dramatic,” Jack remarks, making the universal _calm down_ gesture with his hands.

“What do you know of it?” Mark asks. “You come from the ultra liberal bastion of...of Silicon Valley with its twelve-year-old entrepreneurs and the latest social apps to...to monitor the length of one’s hair growth. The High Court is a bit different from that world.”

“Surely it’s not going to be that bad,” Bridget adds, infusing her tone with forced optimism. “We live in the twenty-first century. These kinds of things are practically normal now. Society has progressed.” Then, more quietly and resentfully under her breath, “Although apparently not to the point where I’m known for being more than just a _wife…_ ”

“Exactly!” Jack says, always so quick to pile on Bridget’s enthusiasm. “This isn’t some...sleazy lifestyle we were purposely trying to keep a secret—”

“How else would this look to anyone on the outside?” Mark asks.

“—it’s a loving relationship between three consenting individuals,” Jack finishes.

“No.” Mark is suddenly exhausted. “It’s a husband who only wants his wife to be happy. And knows it isn’t possible with just him.”

“Mark, that isn’t true!” Bridget denies, but he can see it all over her face.

Mark stares at the two of them, their brightly shining faces full of so much hope even in the midst of what feels like imminent doom. He feels so terribly old next to them. Old and stodgy and with so much more to lose. Bridget and Jack are resilient: they can bounce back from even the most dire situations and come up always smelling like roses for it. But Mark is a well-used cog in a very old, increasingly irrelevant machine, slowly wearing down with every grinding setback.

 

_____

 

Life comes to a crashing halt that weekend. Mark tells his assistant to cancel all his meetings for the week before turning off his phone, not wanting to field any calls from his office nor his family. Besides, his voicemail had blown up mere moments after the news broke. Jack delays his previously planned trip back to San Francisco. Bridget stares mournfully out the window between two slats in the blinds. Over the sea of reporters and cameramen camped outside their door, the park is beckoning. It’s such a beautiful day, and all the more a shame to not be able to take William for a walk in it.

Holed up in his study, Mark tries to concentrate on his work, but finds himself unable to keep the telly off for too long and torturing himself. He’s engrossed in the way news programme after news programme dissects their relationship and lives. Jack’s credibility is only briefly called into question but it's mostly passed off as the eccentricities of extreme wealth and being American.

No, the juicier, more sordid story is trying to rip apart a stuffy, apparently hypocritical human rights lawyer, someone who should be held to the highest moral standard. Commentators pose various opinions and suppositions about his character. Is he really just a closet pervert? Did he fail in sexually satisfying his wife? Is he actually a closeted gay man using Bridget as a beard? He’s been divorced twice already, clearly there’s something not right going on there. Is William really his son? Perhaps he’s actually sterile and Jack was brought in to father the child. Perhaps Jack pays Mark handsomely for the chance to sleep with his wife in some _Indecent Proposal_ scenario.

It goes on and on like a grotesque car accident from which he cannot look away.

Mark likes to think he’s made of sterner stuff than all the preposterous things they call him or call into question, but his edges, fraying as they already were, unravel just a bit more. He’s an intensely private person. Seeing his whole life put on display like this is a nightmare he never knew he should have feared.

A headache takes up permanent lodgings in his skull. His whole body feels as tight as a drawn bow string, back and hips aching from remaining seated for so long in one petrified position.

Abruptly, the telly screen goes dark and the two hands that unexpectedly alight upon his shoulders make him tense up impossibly more before he glances over his shoulder in bewilderment. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Jack says, squeezing his hands, fingers digging into Mark’s shoulders. “God, you’re super tense right now. I can feel more knots in here than on a ship.”

There’s a flash of heat as he remembers the last time Jack had touched him like this in a way that could only be described as _intimate_. They hadn’t done any such thing like that again since that one night, although their relationship towards each other had thawed considerably, and Jack’s friendly touches, physically affectionate creature that he is, became familiar, even acceptable. “I didn’t ask for your input, seeing as how you’re the cause for most of it right now.”

“So let me make it up to you,” Jack says, steadily kneading Mark’s shoulders like dough. “You know, I give excellent massages. Ask Bridge.”

“I don’t want nor need a massage. I’m trying to work.”

Jack eyes the turned off television pointedly, then glances at Mark’s laptop screen and the only sentence of the legal brief he’s been trying to write for the past three hours. “Looks like you’ve been truly productive. So, hey, you’re clearly not in the right frame of mind to finish this right now. Come on, leave off the work for one night and try to relax for once.”

Mark can practically here the miniature angelic Bridget on his shoulder shouting at him to give Jack’s (ultra-Californian, dosy, liberal) way a chance. Mostly, he ignores that voice because even he has his limits, but now as he faces down his unwritten legal brief and the end of his quiet, charmed life and possibly his entire career, his only conclusion can now be: _fuck it_.

Fuck everything, really. He’s almost entirely played by the rules all his life and look where it got him anyhow.

“Alright,” Mark says, feeling fatalistic as he peels off his glasses and drops them onto the desk. He’s darkly amused by the twitch in Jack’s hands that betrays his surprise. “What do you have in mind then?”

To his credit, Jack recovers quickly. “Come to bed,” he says in a playfully throaty tone, a small smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

He almost asks Jack to clarify which one just to be a twat, but it skirts too close to all the unresolved issues churning at their feet. Somehow, he’s not all that surprised when Jack coaxes him past the door to the guest bedroom and leads him straight down the end of the landing to the master.

The bed in the master is quite large, a California King. It had been by Bridget’s request, a rare moment of luxury indulged that even Mark cannot bring himself to regret. It’s so large, it could comfortably fit three adults, but though they are an odd little relationship of said three, they do not all sleep in that bed together. Mark and Bridget mostly sleep in it, or frequently enough when Mark is away for work or working so late he ends up crashing on the leather couch in his study, Jack and Bridget do.

This is the first time both Jack and Mark have breached this space together.

Mark becomes hyperaware of the turquoise bedspread, the handsome oak headboard with dark stain. The neutral slate walls, some equally neutral square carpet laid out dead centre on the floor. The white door to their bath is adjacent to the door to the walk-in. Bridget’s side of the bed is clearly earmarked with a haphazard stack of books, a half-empty glass of water, curlers, her phone charger she always forgets to connect her phone to overnight, and her tablet. Mark’s is spartan: one book about the Nuremberg trials laid out on his nightstand, an empty water glass waiting to be filled afresh for the night, and his glasses case.

With a start, he realises he’s never smelled Jack on his side of the bed. Just Bridget, quite often. It's simple enough to make the connection: when Jack is there, Bridget has him sleep on her side, like his is sacred.

“Strip off and go lay down on the bed,” Jack says.

Mark raises a brow. “Strip off?”

“Just above the belt. Don’t worry, your virtue’s safe with me.” Jack winks. “Unless you’re shy.”

Demonstrating how completely unbothered by any of this he is, Mark undoes the buttons of his dress shirt. He stubbornly ignores Jack’s gaze as he pulls out the shirt tails and tosses it into the hamper in the corner. His white t-shirt soon follows. As an afterthought, he also removes his belt and drapes it over the nearest chair to be properly put away later.

The air is cool to his newly exposed skin, vulnerable. He briefly wonders just how pale he must seem. His skin doesn't actually get to see the sun all that often.

“You can lay down on your front.” Jack makes it sound more like a suggestion.

Mark gingerly climbs onto the bed, feeling like an ungainly tot, lowering himself to his front lengthwise so his feet won’t hang off the edge. Which reminds him: shoes. He quickly toes them off and lets them fall to the floor in two dull thunks. He lays his cheek across his pillow, unsure of what to do with his arms until he slides them under it.

For a long time, he can only hear Jack moving around from loo to bedroom and back again. It’s rather unnerving, given his exposed back to the world. “What are you doing?”

“Gathering supplies,” Jack says, finally returning to the bedroom, suddenly close, the edge of the bed dipping under his weight.

“Supplies.” It sounds ominous, Mark turns his head and half expects to see a tray of torture implements, but instead finds bottles of clear fluid.

“Just some scented oils. I have this really transformative eucalyptus healing blend that helps to clear the body of toxins….”

Oh for fuck’s sake. “I have no desire to smell like a tree.”

“...and unscented, because I knew you were going say that.” Jack smirks.

Mark reluctantly smiles a little. “Just get on with it.”

Jack doesn’t bother with starting off light. His slick, warm fingers press in deep, smoothing up and down Mark’s spine like he’s molding clay, then moving circuitously across his shoulder blades and down his flanks. It feels unconscionably good. Painful, and then expansively liberating, until Mark feels less like an aging body and more like a sumptuous puddle of flesh that has now melded with the mattress.

He must be making primitive appreciative noises because he can practically hear Jack grinning. “Feels good, doesn’t it? All that stress leaving your body. I can do more than just your back, like your feet, for instance.”

“My what?” Mark barely has the wherewithal to murmur, cracking his eyes open.

Jack doesn’t answer him as he shuffles down the bed, picks up one of Mark’s feet and strips it of its sock before plying his magical fingers to the arch. “I’ve also studied reflexology. For example, here,” Jack says, pressing into the inner arch, then drawing a firm line of pressure towards the heel, “is connected to your digestive system. I notice you don’t eat when you're stressed. You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. In fact, you hardly seem to eat anything at all. Upset stomach, right?”

“I hadn’t realised you were tracking my eating patterns,” Mark admits, feeling absurdly caught out.

“I make it a point to know as much as I can about everyone in my family.”

And that...Mark doesn’t know what to say to that. Jack simply moves on to his other foot, working it in peace.

The quiet, however, is not to last.

“Why are you so concerned with...shall we call it the court of public opinion?” Jack asks.

“I’m not,” Mark finds himself answering truthfully, all his rigid defences having been worn away by Jack’s sure hands. “But if it impedes my ability to do my job or infringes on my loved ones’ happiness….”

Jack makes a noise like he understands. “You care for them but not yourself?”

“I know what I am already.”

“Do you?” Jack asks, and before Mark can reply with something peevish, he continues, “You have an awfully negative view of yourself. I’ll admit that worked in my favour when we were, ah, in competition, but I hate seeing you do that to yourself now.”

“Come back to me after two divorces and taking over ten years to marry the eight-percent compatible love of your life.”

Jack chuckles softly. His fingers have travelled up over the ridges of Mark’s ankle, lightly skimming the curves of his calf. “As Bridget once taught me, love is more than just numbers.”

“Now there’s a scandal. Numbers Guy Jack Qwant admitting his algorithms are wrong?”

“Not _wrong_ ,” Jack is quick to defend. “They’re a very solid foundation from which to start a relationship. It’s just that, though. Bridget taught me how to actually build the rest of one. And you’ve taught me how to make it stronger. Your devotion and decency and willingness to sacrifice everything for the ones you love or something you believe in is...humbling. I couldn’t be that guy for Bridge. I’m _not_ that guy. And despite my attempts to rid myself of negativity, I keep finding myself envious of you and knowing that if she were forced to choose, Bridget will always choose you.”

Jack’s soft words are as lulling as his hands pressing into Mark’s calves, acutely agonising at first, then leaving a sweet, warm ache after. It wasn’t always how Jack described it. Mark once chose work first and foremost, and Bridget, in a rare move to save the last pieces of her breaking heart, finally chose self-preservation.

“She would choose William now before either of us idiots,” Mark replies lightly, before admitting, more softly, “You round us out. We work better because of you. I’m grateful, even though sometimes I wish...if anything, for my pride’s sake….”

“...you could be enough for Bridget alone? Yeah, I get it, believe me,” Jack says. “I think the both of us have worked out the Bridget side of things, but this thing between us...I want to be friends, not just for Bridget and Will’s sake, but my own. Maybe more, if that’s what it can turn into, but for now, can I take off your pants?”

Mark’s brain shorts out a bit. “I’m sorry, what?” Perhaps he misheard.

“Your glutes are muscles too, just as much subject to strain and stress as any other muscle in your body.”

“You want to massage my arse.”

“I’ve had your cock in my mouth. This would be a funny place to draw a line in the sand.”

Maybe it’s all the painfully honest conversation or the massage has liquidated his brain, but Mark can’t readily think of an argument against this point, which is just as well since his law days are likely to soon be over.

Slowly, so slowly as if trying to approach a skittish animal, Jack crawls up his legs. Telegraphing all his movements, his hands move up to the waist of Mark’s trousers. And when Jack's hands circle around his sides, Mark unthinkingly raises his hips to assist him. Jack deftly loosens the button and fly, easing both Mark’s trousers and boxers back down his legs and pulling them off entirely.

It should probably be more unnerving than it is, being laid bare. Even their previous association had been conducted with their clothing almost entirely still on. Yet curiously, Mark finds himself relaxed, comfortable, still a bit gelatinous from the prior tenderising. 

Jack starts the massage at the backs of his knees, which are surprisingly sensitive. The lightest touch sends _something_ sizzling down his spine, followed by aftershocks when Jack progresses up to his thighs, which might possibly have produced a rather involuntary moan.

Taking this as approval, Jack proceeds to turn his legs into two boneless columns of flesh. Jack's fingers are firm, skillful, and when they alight upon the more sensitive surfaces of his inner thighs and buttocks, Mark feels the gradual swell of lazily stoked lust stirring in his groin. It’s different from the sharp lightning bolts of desire he gets when he looks at Bridget (more so when he was a good 15 years younger). A slow tide of heat rather than a flash flood.

“ _God_ ,” Mark groans, trying to bury his face into his pillow because it all feels so concertedly good, he barely knows what to do with himself. His skin is flushed, heated and sparking with the even just the slightest sensation. 

“Can I…?” Jack’s voice wavers, betraying how much he’s affected by this as well. “Can I touch you?”

Mark doesn’t understand the question. “You’re already touching me.”

“No, can I touch you...here?” Jack’s finger travels and comes to a stop just where the skin begins to divot at his crack. 

Oh. _Oh_. There’s a dense weight of smouldering anticipation in the air and he already feels drunk with it. “Alright,” he says thickly, heart jackhammering in his chest.

Fortunately, Jack doesn’t simply jab them in as Mark half fears. His oiled fingers slide between Mark’s cheeks, caressing stroking over his hole like a beloved pet. It’s an hysterical thought that has Mark’s shoulders shaking in suppressed laughter. 

“What’s so funny?” Jack asks.

But Mark just shakes his head. “Absurd notions— _ah._ ” is his broken response when Jack’s finger slowly presses into him to the first knuckle. 

“This okay?” Jack asks, to which Mark can only curtly nod, seeing as how his jaw is so tightly clenched.

It’s not painful exactly, merely alien, and he’s far too relaxed now to even remember how to tense up again. No one’s ever really touched him there beyond a few curious cursory encounters that were promptly discarded in favour of the tried and true methods of getting off. Now Jack eases his finger in even deeper before pulling out almost entirely, then repeating the action, pressing against his inner walls over and over again with as much determined precision as he had given to the rest of Mark's body.

Just when the novel edge of that repetitious feeling starts to dull, Jack presses in again, two fingers this time, and immediately there is _fullness_ and slightly burning pressure. Mark’s mouth falls open, fingers digging into the sheets, hard pressed to describe the exact sensation.

“There, that’s it,” Jack practically croons before doing something with his fingers, twisting and curling, Mark can feel them move inside him in small searching circles, before it feels like a match has been taken to his body and he yelps at the unexpected reaction, hips thrusting into the mattress seemingly of their own volition.

Heat and light and pleasure ignite through his nerves. _Want_. One immediate wave follows another and another as Jack keeps stroking over his prostate, and Mark tries to muffle the constant stream of groans into his pillow until he can barely breathe. The bedspread feels slightly course beneath his cock, providing a nice amount of friction as he can’t help thrusting against.

It feels like it goes on infinitely, caught in this constant tidepool of slowly radiating pleasure that starts to feel like it’s too much to contain, and yet frustratingly not enough to push him to where he wants to go, where he _needs_ to be.

“What’s this then? Starting without me?”

It takes far too long for Bridget’s voice to register in Mark’s lust-muddy brain, and by the time it does, he can’t even find it in himself to react properly (leap off the bed with all the blankets and pretend none of this ever happened). He just opens his eyes to a very blurry world, tries to open his mouth to speak, but can’t even remember how to form words that aren’t garbled together whimpers. Might have even drooled a bit instead.

“Bridge,” Jack answers for the both of them. “It’s about time. You should come join us. Everything with Will okay?”

“Sleeping like a baby in his crib, which one would hope to be the case, seeing as how he is one.” Bridget eagerly scampers forward, eyes still wide from the scene that greets her, and wonderingly places a hand upon Mark’s left arse cheek while Jack’s damnable fingers still move inside him. “I can see you two are getting on rather famously. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him make that noise before, Jack.”

She smells fantastic. Like her beloved lightly floral perfume and William’s milky baby scent and the chocolate digestives she must have snuck in before coming to bed. His lovely, gorgeous, wonderful Bridget.

“Bridget,” Mark manages to verbalise, though it emerges more like a desperate gasp, his hands blindly clawing out until they find one of her supple thighs. “Come up here. I want to….”

“To…?” Bridget prompts, though she is already moving to do as he asked. His resourceful Bridget, able to slip into the narrow space between the headboard and his head, until he can breathe in the scent of her through her knickers and wool pyjama bottoms.

Without putting words to it, he grasps at the drawstring waistband of her bottoms and pulls them off her hips, practically yanking them down her thighs, which she helps to kick entirely off.

“My, my, aren’t we rather frisky tonight, Mr Darcy?” Bridget laughs breathlessly, only to trail off in a sigh when Mark pushes her thighs apart and spreads the lips of her pussy to lick a long line just to the base of her clit with the flat of his tongue. From there, he starts to work her in earnest, all wet noises and suction, her inner walls, labia, circling around her clit until it swells and his mouth and nose grow hot slick.

Bridget’s fingers are digging into his scalp, gripping his hair while Jack’s fingers press into him, over and over again. Bridget moans and sighs and Mark moves his tongue and lips and nose in time to Jack’s fingers in an unending loop of pleasure that he’s not sure he ever wants to stop.

But it’s Bridget who comes first with Mark’s mouth closed over her entire clit as she crests over, two fingers inside her wet pussy, pressing in and up just as there are two fingers inside his arse.

In the fading echoes of Bridget’s cries, Jack sounds _ruined_. “Jesus. Mark. Mark, can I fuck you? Please?”

“Yes. _Fine_.” Almost impatient. Mindless. He doesn’t know, he just knows he needs so much right now. Bridget’s scent in his nose, half his face coated in her, tasting her on his tongue, hard enough to fucking hammer nails.

Doesn’t really get it until Jack’s legs are bracketing him, until he’s entirely covering Mark with his own body and Mark feels the blunt head of his cock between his cheeks, slowly pressing in.

“Look at you, my darling,” Bridget whispers above him, stroking his cheek, “You’re a picture.”

Jack’s cock is so much bigger than two fingers. So much more. The stretch burns. Mark feels like he’s slowly being pried open, it’s nearly overwhelming.

Jesus. He’s getting fucked by a man. He begins to breathe faster. “Wait,” he croaks.

Immediately, everything stops. Jack pulls out, leaving an aching emptiness behind. Bridget tips his face up in concern. “What is it? Is this alright? Are you alright?” 

“Yes.” He nods, swallows, tries again. “Yes, I just need...can I...I need to be inside you. Can I…?”

In answer, Bridget starts to slide down, and he gets his knees beneath him, easily makes room for her under his body, like they will always fit perfectly together, grooves all worn to each other’s precise specifications. Her skin feels silky against his legs, her pussy is still hot and slick from her climax, and he slides into her so easily, embraced by her tight heat.

“Oh,” Bridget breathes, reddened mouth falling open when he starts to thrust in with slow grinding movements. Her legs come to circle his waist, locking at the small of his back. She looks over his shoulder to Jack. “Well? Carry on then, yes?”

“Yes,” Mark agrees, bracing his elbows on either side of her, splaying his knees wide.

He watches her face transform into delight, eyes widening, cheeks pink, pupils expanding in desire, the moment Jack pushes back into him. Doesn’t know what must be on his face, just that he can’t close his mouth, can’t move for several frantic heartbeats as Jack doesn’t stop until Mark can feel his hips against his arse, simultaneously split impossibly open and stuffed to the brim.

“You okay?” Jack asks, sounding like he’s run a marathon.

Bridget drags Mark’s mouth down to hers and kisses him, full and deep, stealing his remaining oxygen until he’s dizzy.

“He’s alright,” Bridget tells Jack when Mark can’t speak again, “Go slow.”

Jack’s hands close around Mark’s hips as he pulls back, perhaps a few inches, before pushing back in, slow and steady, until Mark doesn’t feel like he’s going to shatter apart so completely anymore and he can bear down, push his hips back.

Each movement pushes him into Bridget, then back out, then in again, until Jack’s thrusts grow longer and more forceful, and Bridget’s breaths are being pushed from her lips in synchronised rhythm until she tightens around him and moans in her second climax. “Oh, fuck. _Fuck_.”

Something Jack does, a slightly different angle on his next thrust, really does it for him. Lights him up again like his fingers had done, only more intensely, more profuse. It makes Mark groan, thrust harder into Bridget, and shudder all at once, especially when Jack does it again, and then again, and then he won’t stop, faster, wild and uncoordinated with it.

Bridget’s grabs his face in her hands, forces him to look at her. She’s blotchy, sweaty, and stunning. “That’s it. How does it feel? Good, yeah? So good. You look so lovely, Mark. So good like this. I love you so much.”

That’s it, really. Climax hits him with the force of a freight train as he cries out some intelligible string of nonsense and practically curls into Bridget’s warm body, barely cognisant of Jack fucking him harder and harder, practically shoving him and Bridget into the headboard, until he too, finally comes, cock as deep in Mark’s arse as it can possibly be.

There’s a rather sort of shocked aftermath as the world starts to settle back into place and the warmth tapers off. What had felt immensely good not less than a minute ago starts to throb, feel sticky, or becomes just generally unpleasant. Jack eases out of Mark, and _that_ isn’t enjoyable at all, and Mark slides out of Bridget. All the fluids on or sliding out of him grow tacky. His arse is _sore_ and he imagines sitting down will be bloody difficult for awhile. His legs feel shaking with exhaustion. His eyelids feel heavy with post-coital torpour.

By some unanimous agreement, they leave off cleanup in favour of collapsing into bed as a pile of clammy limbs and bodies. Somehow, Mark finds himself sandwiched in the middle, a position with which he is unfamiliar, as Bridget turns on her side and slides her leg over his, hand coming to rest on his chest, and Jack...does the same. Together, Jack’s and Bridget’s fingers intertwine over his sternum.

“I’m sorry about my mother, Mark,” Bridget finally says. “I’m sorry this happened. And that you’ve felt this way. We’ll stop whatever this is. I don’t want you to be unhappy. Neither one of us does.”

“Agreed,” Jack says. “I would miss you both, but I want your happiness more.”

Mark’s hand covers theirs, feeling the differences of smooth and coarse knuckles beneath his palm. What an absolutely bizarre situation all around. Nightmarish in all the implications now that it’s been made obscenely public. And yet.

And yet.

He doesn’t think he has ever known this feeling. Doesn’t even know how best he can describe it. Settled. Quiet. So utterly safe in this bed, wedged between these two people he is sharing his life and body with. They know each other, warts and all: the greatest failings, biggest regrets, most intimate secrets, all the mortifying thoughts and moments. They know _him_. And they are still here. They love _him_.

“I think we should go away for awhile,” he says. “Get away from this media frenzy. The three of us, and William. Or maybe our parents can watch him.”

It’s really not going to solve anything happening right now, the running away. The press won’t suddenly drop its interest, at least not until something bigger takes over the news cycle. But before they face the world as a united, unflinching front, damn all the consequences, it’d be nice to take a moment to breathe and figure out this new, evolving thing growing between them.

“I’ve got a house in Ibiza,” Jack offers. “It’s pretty nice. Warm. Remote. Very private.”

“I think that sounds like a lovely idea,” Bridget says, leaning forward to kiss the corner of Mark’s mouth and then over him to kiss Jack in turn.

“You too, man,” Jack says when he pulls away from Bridget.

Before Mark knows what’s happening, Jack is kissing him as well.

Jack’s stubble scratches his face, his lips are surprisingly soft and plush, and his tongue is unsurprisingly bold and brash.

Mark’s hand finds the back of Jack’s neck, rising to meet the challenge, giving as good as he gets, and Bridget is laughing and laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> come shout at me on [tumblr](http://futuredescending.tumblr.com).


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